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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29787102">Still Has (Had) Time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/lum1n0sity/pseuds/lum1n0sity'>lum1n0sity</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Adora being selfish for once, Angst, Because she totally deserves it, Bow Is a Good Friend (She-Ra), Catra (She-Ra) Redemption, Corrupted Catra (She-Ra), Emotional Hurt, End of the World, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, Inspired By Little Nightmares, Love, POV Adora (She-Ra), Past Adora/Catra (She-Ra), She-Ra alternate universe, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018) Season 5, The First Ones (She-Ra), Thinking about Catra because who wouldnt, yeah its just not a good time sorry</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-04-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 03:01:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,786</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29787102</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/lum1n0sity/pseuds/lum1n0sity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>She wasn't going to lose her again.<br/>She couldn't.<br/>For once, Adora chose to be selfish.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Her eyes opened gingerly. She blinked a few times. She was certain she'd heard Catra laughing. She'd come back. Her heart soared. Before she could even process it,
she was running. She refused to stop, as much as her body screamed her to give in and finally rest. She needed Catra. She wasn't going to lose her again. She couldn't. She still has time.</p><p>"Hey, Adora."</p><p>The familiar voice soothed her raging nerves - a lullaby within a sleepless night. Adora's face softened. She smiled and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw her, eyes crinkled in a smile. "Catra, you came—"</p><p>"Adora!" A voice called. She was engrossed in the overwhelming peace she felt with her eyes glued to Catra's, but tore them away to find the source of the sound. But then she felt the intense static energy consume her, and the atmosphere shifted and moulded into the Fright Zone.<br/>
Her gaze met Catra's materialising form. She was younger. Clad in training uniform, smiling fondly at her. Adora remembered a day after training, where they sat on Adora's bunk and whispered about nothing. And then she plucked up the confidence to call Catra's eyes pretty. Catra blushed and turned away, and Adora couldn't help the scarlet tinge that pricked at her own cheeks, too.<br/>
Then she glitched into the hollow, icy shell of herself, corrupted by glowing green. Though the memory made her chest heave with pain, Adora thought about how she'd saved Catra. It was for a small moment where all their years of fighting subsided into nothing, and they had melted in each other's embrace like it was second nature. It was a familiar solace.
The tyrannical, power hungry but broken Catra, the stubborn, strong willed but sensitive Catra, the vulnerable, headstrong but loving Catra. For small second, Adora felt guilty. All the versions of Catra, the good - but most importantly the bad - were her fault. If she had stayed, she wouldn't have ever known she was She-Ra, Catra wouldn't have ever snapped, and they could've ruled Etheria in blissful ignorance. Morally, it was wrong, but realistically her heart tugged at the idea. She knew she had a destiny to fulfil and a death to silently prepare for, but for just a second more she wanted to exist as Adora with Catra. Foreheads grazing, hot breath against lips, fingers tracing skin. For a fleeting moment, she felt like true, pure magic.<br/>
And then when she felt the sting of reality against her face - a cold and cadaverous reminder - Catra had gone.</p><p>She is left staring into an empty abyss.</p><p>Etheria was beautiful. She felt this overwhelming sense of peace, like her soul was flourishing and free as she stood on the cliffs edge, staring at the scenery below. The sky was alive with colour; pale pink and dark violet and honey yellow melting into a tight embrace, and the sun shed rays of light down into the thick foliage; a gift of warmth and benevolence for the eager planet. The wind was graceful and kindly, carrying wisps of magic high into the air, up into the welcoming atmosphere. Adora looked up. Stars looked back down at her. They shone so fervently they were like daggers in her eyes.<br/>
It was a euphoric illusion. A vision of the rest of her afterlife stood vigorously in front of her, beckoning her. But as much as she wished she could melt away into the warmth, her body felt cold and distant. Something felt so wrong about it all, like she was being pulled away from something that made her whole. Like prying two magnets apart from each other, severing their permanent entwinement; she felt her body being ripped in two.<br/>
Suddenly, she felt herself cry. She'd had this outward numbness for so long - a front to keep up her heroic stance while she'd walked as fearlessly as her face could muster to her predestined death. But standing in front of Etheria - a planet that was not entirely hers to reside in but not entirely foreign to her either - she felt her lungs quake and her heart soar and her eyes melt with tears. She never really belonged. Not even in a place that welcomed her. Shadow Weaver was never a mother, the Horde was never a home. The Rebellion treated her like a toy, the First One's: a weapon.</p><p>She is nothing but a solider, a token, and a sacrifice.</p><p>She hated being alone. Ironic as people would think it - since Adora knew she actively pushed people away - loneliness was her biggest fear. So standing alone in a place that felt so alive made her feel like dying. A part of her needed to accept it - she'd brought it all on herself, after all. But another part of her that she had denied - the want and need and crave and desire - flickered softly in protest. She realised - while standing in the illusion in which she would have to reside in for the rest of time itself - what she really, desperately wanted. Maybe she'd realised it even sooner, but staring quite literally at death's door snapped something inside her. She wanted Catra. It always had been Catra. Maybe it was awful for her to think, but she'd rather the world end with Catra by her side than live the rest of her lifeless future without her. Bow had said it would be a new world after she activated the failsafe. And it would be. She just wouldn't be alive to see it, and her last thought before she died would be regret. She'd promised Catra they'd always have each other, and granted she'd broken it that day at Thaymor, but this time was different. She couldn't leave her. Not again. Not when she knew the last memory Catra would ever have of her was a bad one. She wanted her. And for once, she was going to be selfish. She'd made her decision. The façade of perfection screeched before her, then shattered. Shards of Etherian sky rained down on her. Blackness replaced the once-warm scenery. She turned and ran, trying not to get consumed in the chasing darkness.</p><p>She is faulty with realisation.</p><p>Adora ran. Weaving in and out of pasts and presents that pulled at her. The darkness was enticing. Sounds and smells and feelings she had experienced before coaxed at her wavering attention. Catra purring as she slept beside her feet on her bunk. The flames that danced in her eyes as she watched the peaceful village collapse before her. Metal and burnt flesh. The warmth of Bow and Glimmer's embrace. Catra's stupid cackle when Kyle tripped over his own feet during training. The ruins of Salineas; salt water tears that wept through the Horde-claimed territory. Catra's smile. Her eyes crinkled when she smiled. 
Adora's hands trembled as she ran, trying to swat away the ghostly memories that haunted her. She was sure her knees would buckle under her. She'd made her decision. She focused on the straight line of the temple in front of her. If she squinted, she could see a small but encouraging beam of white light. The exit. 
Flashes of her life fragmented in all directions. They were chasing her. Wisps of future selves thrashed at her face, latched onto her legs. Holding her down like anchors at sea. She saw herself, an older but comfortable figure, desperately hanging onto Adora's waist. Her eyes were a desperate cry. Adora herself cried out, shaking her body to detach the illusion. She didn't look back, but heard future Adora wail, then shatter. Her peripheral was closing in on her and the ground was churning beneath her; a low but deafening rumble as the world caved in. She pushed forward. The light was closer, almost within reach. She struggled as the future clawed into her skin. If it wasn't for her heart pumping adrenaline through her veins, she was sure the pain would've been unbearable. But then all thoughts melted away. The light was there in front of her - cold and sterile. Adora smiled to herself. She heard Catra's giggle echoing beyond the light. She'd made it. She leapt into it, consuming herself in white. 

</p>
<p>She is eluding her own destiny.</p><p>Her eyes opened gingerly. She blinked a few times. She was certain she'd heard Catra laughing. She'd come back. Her heart soared. Before she could even process it,
she was running. She refused to stop, as much as her body screamed her to give in and finally rest. She needed Catra. She wasn't going to lose her again. She couldn't.<br/>
She<br/>
Still.<br/>
Has.<br/>
Time.</p><p>"Hey, Adora."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Still Has (Had) Time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>The aftermath.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Whispering Woods stood silent. The gentle sway of the lively trees replaced with an icy stillness. What was once an abundant forest now lay a scattered array of stumps and twigs, twisted and jagged and dead. Though there was no wind - since now Etheria resided as an airless shell of a planet; the hollow and empty toll of defeat - there was a howl that started as small as a shallow breath that then burst into a mourning howl, a cry of loss into the uninhabited atmosphere.<br/>
Once shrouded by the camouflage of trees, the Crystal Castle stands staggering - dilapidated and alone.  There's a sound: a small whimper of static. A repetitive glitched recording hidden within the remains of the First Ones temple. It echoes into the emptiness outside, barely intelligible. Two sentences, followed by nothing:</p><p>"Hey, Adora."<br/>
"Catra, you came-"</p><p>-</p><p>Prime stands on the planet, observing. The cold stretches on. If the blast of the Heart did not vaporise the entire planet's inhabitants, bodies of the defiant rebels would be strewn against its surface. But there is no evidence of such necessary atrocities. Instead, emptiness. Though Etheria - in terms of significance - meant very little to Prime, He did feel indebted to it. He need not, since He roamed the Universe now omnipotent, but owed His victory to the Princesses of Etheria and most of all, their so-called hero. She-Ra, now residing in the only standing structure of the planet as a broken record, much like every other She-Ra before. Trapped. Alone.<br/>
He was not malicious. Not callous or cruel, but calculated and cunning. He could destroy the Castle, reduce it to nothing but rubble under His feet, and leave her soul to rest in the darkness alongside her wretched kind, instead of suffering in a never-ending cycle of torment.</p><p>Though, He thought, mercy is a gift not deserving of a false hero. </p><p>So as a parting gift instead, He walks away, onto His ship, and disappears forever, leaving the glitching hologram of Adora as a reminder for any who dares to stand up against him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thank you for reading! This is my first time on AO3 so I'm trying to get used to the layout. I wrote this at like 2AM, and it looked longer than what it actually is, so oops? Short and sweet, I guess. Also I was listening to Jack White's cover of Love Is Blindness when I wrote it and it kind of fits the mood, so I'd recommend listening!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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